*Shocked Eagles struggling with Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Benin Republic in World Cup qualifiers

*Nigerian media should make more noise

*Why I stopped writing a sports column

*Points the way forward for Nigerian sports

By Jacob Ajom 

There is angst in the country. Nigeria football is at its lowest ebb. This is exemplified by the struggles of the senior national team, the Super Eagles in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. They are almost out of it. Only a miracle may see them through.

But miracles don’t always happen.  Football fans across the country are bemoaning the team’s impending absence at the second successive FIFA World Cup when it kicks off in Canada, Mexico and the United States next year.

Two former Super Eagles captains –  Sunday Oliseh and Mikel Obi – have voiced their frustrations and called for the sack of the board of the Nigeria Football Federation if Nigeria fails to qualify.

“Whenever we fail to qualify for the World Cup, our football goes back eight years. There is no way such a board should continue to be in office,” Oliseh started.

On his part, Mikel Obi said, “if we fail to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, the entire members of the board of the NFF should resign and hide their faces in shame. Failing to qualify for the tournament twice in a row is unacceptable. They must quit.”

Sports Vanguard sought the view of one of Nigeria’s heroes,  Adokiye Amiesimaka on the chances of Super Eagles qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, given that Nigeria sits third in the table, on 11 points from eight matches, six adrift of group leaders South Africa and three behind the Republic of Benin. Meanwhile, Rwanda who are level on points are breathing down their necks.

The former Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General of Rivers State said he was not following the Super Eagles because Nigeria has never been serious with football. 

“We’re never serious,” he started.  Corruption in football has held us down. From the selection of coaches, players to those who administer the game. Corruption is everywhere. I once ran a football club.  People were wondering why I insisted on doing things rightly. They wanted me to bribe referees. I said no. They said others were doing it. I said not me. How do members of the football board emerge? Why do we win at Under 17 and it does not translate or transit to the senior team? When you cheat to win is it not corruption?

“What progress have we made since 1996? Nothing. I last played for my country 44 years ago. And in 2025, we are still depending on England, Italy, Turkey, even China to form our national team.”

He said where Nigeria got it wrong was the abandonment of developmental programmes that saw his likes graduate from under 13 to intermediate before playing for the national team. Repeatedly, re recalled his experience as chairman of Sharks Football Club of Port Harcourt. He formed a youth club, as stipulated by the league authorities. “I was always preaching fair play. I was preaching development of the youth team. Sharks had their own stadium and people thought I was from outer space. My own people in River state, came to me and said, look, we must win matches. Why are you talking about fair play and development of youth? Just bribe referees, organise area boys to beat referees and so on. That win at all cost mentality has killed our sports; not just football.”

How many times have we won the FIFA U17 World Cup? A record five times. Now, what does that tell you? It tells you we’ve just been cheating because we cannot translate that to international success at the senior level. You know why we are winning youth championships? We bring 30-year-old players,  shave and rub powder on their faces to play in these championships.

And we are just glossing over it. We are not doing a self-critique. We are not asking ourselves how we won. When we win, we don’t ask ourselves questions like, how did we win? What made us win? When we lose, we also don’t ask, what’s the problem? We don’t. It’s just anything goes.

But you can always consult those who know better than you do. What exactly do we think we are doing? We cannot continue like that.”

“No, we can’t make progress that way. Now, we have made ourselves feel inferior to the rest of the world. What does it matter if we qualify for the World Cup? We struggle to play the Republic of Benin, Lesotho, Zimbabwe?. And we certainly have some superstars playing in foreign leagues. And they come back home to make things worse. Our local league is not where it should be. Again, I ask, “what does it matter if we qualify for the World Cup? Look, that’s why I don’t bother talking about football anymore. What does it matter? The fundamentals are not there. It’s like they say, tumbulu, tumbulu. Tumbulu, tumbulu.”

More embarrassing, Amiesimaka observed, was the appointment of a foreign coach for the national team.”Back home, we can’t even find an indigenous coach to handle our national team? We can’t be more unserious than this. Late Stephen Keshi, an indigenous coach did well, won the AFCON but was sacked barely one year after. “Why? Up till now, nobody can explain why he was sacked. How can we be more unserious?”

The former international spoke about people who seek offices without taking up responsibilities demanded of their offices. Quoting Nigeria’s former colonial Governor General of Nigeria, Lord Lugard, he said, “Lord Lugard said about us. Africans, ‘they want office. They want power.

But they don’t want responsibility.’

We have all sorts of characters who scheme for high offices. They neither have the expertise or the confidence to do anything. They don’t even accept responsibility. They don’t even know what their office is about. Everybody wants to go there and line his pockets ”

Vanguard interjected, “But people like you who are knowledgeable are running away from being NFF president?

“You are not being fair to me,” he said. “You know that I am not a position seeker. I don’t have to be in the office. But I used to be a columnist, Sunday Punch for about eight years, until I voluntarily withdrew in 2015 when I saw that it was just a waste of time. People were regarding it more as an entertainment stories than something to educate us and enlighten us. They would say, oh, beautiful article. That is true. Fantastic piece. But it ended there. The authorities were not reading and if they read they did nothing. So, you were writing for only the fans who were not translating it to anything? I was writing, and I did not spare anybody. And I was being very factual as acknowledged by readers of the newspaper. But nothing happened, so I stopped writing.”

Again, I was chairman of the committee that was set up by our Olympic body to draft a new framework for court of arbitration CAS in Nigeria in 2012. It was received with a lot of fanfare. Oh, beautiful. Fantastic. Implementation zero. They just pushed it under somebody’s table there in the so-called sports ministry.”

Amiesimaka said the only way forward is a sports development oriented policy. “I was privileged to have experienced it. I played for my school team. I was the senior prefect of the school. We won the Lagos State Principals Soccer Cup in 1975. I was a member of the Nigeria State Academicals in 1975.

I was a member of the U19 national team at Ghana– Nigerian Sports Festival in 1975. You can see the progression. I got into UNILAG.

I played for the UNILAG team. I was invited to the senior national team. Then I got to Rangers. At least there was some kind of progression from secondary  to university. It had some semblance of a graduated development.

In his active days, Nigeria had foreign based professionals like John Chidozie, Tunji Banjo, John and Austin Fashanu. Some of them warmed the bench  because the quality of the home based players was even higher than what they brought to the table. “Things are worse now. If those who are playing football outside the country don’t turn up, we are nowhere. In fact, Ajegunle United could beat our national team. If we get management right, the sky will be the limit because we have the raw talents. Corruption has eaten deep into the marrows of our system and it is holding down our sports. That is why we are not making progress.”

Let us set up the structure now; a youth development structure. Till tomorrow, we are not thinking of it. You know why, we are winning youth championships? Bringing 30-year-old players that we properly shave and rub powder on their faces. And then we say we are world champions and we are celebrating. You beat England 6-0 in the U17s. Go and play them in the senior team, you don’t only emphasise on the youth team. And the time others are developing their potentials, we are here denying our youth the opportunity of developing their skills. You see, the thing about youth development, when the players are in their formative years, 10, 11, 12, 13, you catch them young. You take them through the process. By the time they are 16, 17, they add physical maturity to their natural talent and grooming. They become unstoppable because we have the talent.

There are more talents here than in any other parts of the world. Like in athletics, where the Jamaicans are doing well. Many of them have their heritage here in West Africa. Yeah.

They took their great-grandfathers to Jamaica in the days of slave trade from West Coast. From Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and others. That’s where they took them from. There has been a study that confirmed that. But there they have a properly structured youth development policy in athletics.

And that’s why they are doing so well in athletics. Because we don’t care , we wait for the foreign sports bodies to develop our talents. It’s not that we don’t know what to do. But we don’t just seem to care. For whatever reason. And you, you, the press. You are not making enough noise.

We are in a country where leaders don’t even care about what you write. It is the people that can put pressure on them.

Why don’t we have a motivation for sports in Nigeria? Why don’t we have an effective and well articulated sports policy? Let the ordinary people out there who read newspapers, who may not necessarily be in high office, be the ones that will ask questions.

Can you imagine Nigeria losing to countries I don’t even remember their names? We lost to Benin Republic 2-1. In my time, we flogged them 7-0 in Lagos, and we went to their country and flogged them. 2-0. Benin are now the ones we are struggling to play with. That tells you everything.”

When he was reminded that football today has changed from what was obtained in his days because every country has its children abroad who play good football as well.

He quipped, “You see, that’s also part of the problem. Why do we wait for our children who are abroad to come home and play?